Robert Shaw Reid
Robert Shaw Reid (1858-1907)
1907 Obituary [1]
ROBERT SHAW REID was born in Glasgow on 17th June 1858, and was educated at Anderson's Academy in the same city.
In 1874 he began an apprenticeship with Messrs. William King and Co., marine engineers, of Glasgow.
On its completion in 1879 he entered the service of the City Line of Glasgow, his first ship being the City of Cambridge, sailing between the Clyde and Calcutta, and after a varied experience at sea in other Companies' ships, he started in business for himself in 1886 as consulting engineer and marine surveyor in Glasgow, where he soon built up a large and growing connection. He took a particular interest in the preservation of boilers, and his treatment was very successful.
Among his various inventions may be mentioned that of a life-saving deck which was approved and passed by the Board of Trade, but as shipowners had been put to the expense of complying with new life-saving regulations the invention fell into abeyance.
His death took place, after a few days' illness, at his residence at Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire, on 26th October 1906, at the ago of forty-eight. Ho became a Member of this Institution in 1901; and he was also a Member of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland.